Watercooling 101

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Nice guide. A couple of things I noticed though. From what I could see you've not mentioned anything about bleeding the loop. That's where a res will become extremely useful and would be best placed at the top of the loop, or in a position where it can be roatated to the top. Makes bleeding the system much easier IMO.

Another "low flow" block that I would mention is the NexXxos XP. It performs very well in both low flow and high flow systems. (And the gold plated version is damn sexy )

Nice article, though as mentioned on the first page its the £££ thats prevented me from taking the plunge... maybe i'll just put my pc in a beer fridge instead, would be cheaper and condensation cant be THAT harmful

It is possible to get below ambient temps using watercooling... by including an evaporative cooling tower in your loop. Of course you constantly need to top up the water in the system, but hey, who said mods ever needed to be practical. It also helps if you live in a dry climate, unlike the UK at the moment.

Nice article. It's nice to see a fairly comprehensive guide to watercooling.

I do want to address one of the initial points in favor of watercooling:

Quote:

Originally Posted by The ArticleWater is quieter: A slow-spinning 120mm fan on a copper radiator will do a better job, while freeing up trapped PCI or PCIe 1x slots.

I see this point made in just about every watercooling guide, but I think it's a little misleading. If you're using watercooling to replace the fans on those beefy graphics cards, coupled with a power-hungry processor, you're going to need more than just a single, slow-spinning 120mm fan. You'll probably need 2 fans, both of them spinning fast enough to push a decent amount of air across the radiator. Add another fan or two for the passive components (hard drives, northbridge, etc.) and at least one more for the power supply, and the total number of fans is no less than when you started with air cooling.

A couple months ago, I was considering a watercooling loop, and silence was one of my main reasons/concerns. After my research, I found that with decent cable routing to aid the air flow, I can run my processor and graphics card at comfortable settings with fewer fans than would have been necessary with watercooling. By slowing the fan speeds, my system is now almost silent, runs cool enough, and not a drop of water was used.

I can see where watercooling can be attractive. Better overclocking, the l33t factor, even lower temps; these are all fine reasons. But with components putting out more heat nowadays, silence isn't really guaranteed with watercooling. At least, it's no more silent than a well thought out air cooling setup.

I tried water cooling and it wasn't for me and I can't understand why anyone but the most dedicated overclocker or no noise person would want it. With air cooling you can remove enough heat with good coolers and case cooling from the most high end components even when overclocked to quite high levels with almost silence if you know what your doing. But with water cooling your faced with leaks and most annoying a system you are unable to easily able to tinker with as it's full of tubes! (no more just quikly installing anything... evey job is suddenly at least 3hrs long while you replumb)...
For me water cooling was a big waste of money and someting which I wish I had thought about abit mroe before trying it.

Originally Posted by Kipman725I tried water cooling and it wasn't for me and I can't understand why anyone but the most dedicated overclocker or no noise person would want it. With air cooling you can remove enough heat with good coolers and case cooling from the most high end components even when overclocked to quite high levels with almost silence if you know what your doing. But with water cooling your faced with leaks and most annoying a system you are unable to easily able to tinker with as it's full of tubes! (no more just quikly installing anything... evey job is suddenly at least 3hrs long while you replumb)...
For me water cooling was a big waste of money and someting which I wish I had thought about abit mroe before trying it.

As with everything, YMMV. A well-designed aircooled system can certainly hold its own against a watercooled system (although not outcompete it). If you build a watercooled unit well, you shouldn't have to worry about leaks and the loop should not get in the way of any tinkering.